


Ruby Tears

by NotASpaceAlien



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6012871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotASpaceAlien/pseuds/NotASpaceAlien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley decides Valentine's Day might be a good time to confess to Aziraphale, but he doesn't quite get the reaction he was hoping for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruby Tears

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/139321567480/hello-my-friends-here-is-my-valentines-day
> 
> This is based on a drawing by artist Kogla (link to drawing at end of fic)

Demons, as a general rule, do not cry.

They also do not, as a general rule, tend houseplants, appreciate fine wine and wristwatches, or fall in love with antique cars.  They do not, as a general rule, love at all.  Especially not angels.

But every rule has an exception that proves it, and, as a general rule, if you love, you’re also going to cry.

* * *

It was seven thirty in the evening, and two figures had to cease their machinations at the unwelcome beckoning of the doorbell.

Anathema sighed and rolled off her husband.  “Newt, will you get that?”

Newt untangled himself from the sheets, flustered, blood still rushing in certain places.  “Erm, what was that?”

“The doorbell.”

Newt stared at her, as though trying to process.  Then: “Oh! The doorbell!  Of course. I’ll get it. Be right back.”  He took a moment to lunge at her, and she giggled and flailed against his hands.  “Don’t go anywhere.”

He pulled on clothes as fast as he could, intending to make record time in getting their visitor to leave. He was still buttoning his pants as he turned the knob.

There was a dark-haired man on the doorstep, smartly dressed.  Newt could see his own reflection in his dark glasses.  He looked vaguely familiar for some reason, but Newt couldn’t place where he might have met him before.

“Ah…Can I help you, sir?”

“This is the Pulsifer-Device residence, isn’t it?” said the man.

“Yes.  Can I help you with something, ah, sir?”

“Look,” he said.  “I’m after a book.  A very _specific_ book.  A _nice_ and _accurate_ book.”

“Oh,” said Newt, suddenly unsure.  “You want it…ahm…”

“Well, I’m not asking for you to just give it to me.  I’ll pay you for it.  You do have it, don’t you?”

Newt was working around a block in his memory, like there was something that had happened but couldn’t quite be brought to the forefront, like Jell-O slipping away from him.

“We burned it, I’m afraid,” said Newt, making a motion to close the door.  “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

He stopped as a foot wedged in the door, keeping it open.  “You burned the only remaining copy of _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter_ in the world?” he exclaimed.

“Oh!” said Newt, who had been thinking of the second book they had received.  They had eventually decided they would be better off without it.* “No, that one we still have, although it’s seen better days…”

* * *

*They didn’t know because they had never opened it, but all the pages in that book had actually been blank. Agnes knew Anathema wouldn’t want to live as a descendant for the rest of her life, and had sent her the book only to make her realize how she wanted to forge her own path from then on.

* * *

“How much do you want for it?”

“Look, why do you even want it?  If you know about the book surely you must know that all the prophecies are useless now.”

“It’s for…sentimental reasons.”

“Sentimental reasons?” said Newt.  “You’re not the one who grew up with the b—Look, I’ll—Just stay here.”

He waited patiently on the porch with the door shut in his face while Newt and Anathema had a very heated discussion.  He returned a moment later with a charred volume, and held it out.  “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?  I can’t imagine _why_ —”

“I’ll give you one hundred for it.”

Newt made contemplative sounds.  “She told me not to let you have it for any less than five hundred.”

The man withdrew an ornate pocket book from his jacket and began scribbling on it.  He tore off a check and held it out.  “There you are.”

He watched as the man took the book and made his getaway in an antique black car.  He took the check back inside.  They didn’t discover the miscommunication that made them several orders of magnitude richer than anticipated until he looked at the check and realized the man had been omitting the word _thousand_ on his offer.

* * *

Crowley opened the door to his flat when Aziraphale knocked, smiling widely at him all the way to his honey-yellow eyes.  “I’m here, just as you asked,” said Aziraphale.

“Angel, come in!”

Aziraphale hung his coat by the door as Crowley went back into the apartment.

“Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back.”

Aziraphale settled himself in the dining room as he heard Crowley rummaging around in the kitchen. On the table was a cake with white icing and delicate rosettes at the corners.  There was also a rectangle of wrapping paper with a red velvet bow.

“Here we are,” said Crowley as he re-entered with a pair of wine glasses and a bottle of something sweet. He sounded like he was forcing as much bravado into his voice as possible, for reason Aziraphale couldn’t figure out.

As Crowley poured the wine, Aziraphale looked from the box, to the cake, then up to Crowley, whose tie had somehow gained a few discreet red hearts toward the tip, and realized:

“My dear, I’m sure you realize what day it is?  And what the, ah…implications of doing something like this _today_ are?”

“Valentine’s Day,” said Crowley.  “Of course! Angel, I get you something every Valentine’s Day.”

“Yes, but you always say that it’s because…  How did you put it?”

“Corporate greed,” said Crowley cheerfully.  “Mass consumerism!  Artificiality!  Devaluing love!  Come on, Aziraphale, everything about Valentine’s Day is—”

“Something you could have thought of.”

“I love feeding the consumerist frenzy, Aziraphale. Don’t put too much thought into it.” 

“But it looks like this cake was homemade.  How is that fueling or corrupting anything?”

Crowley flushed beet red. “Erm…”

“I mean, it’s very nice. It could almost be professionally done.**  The icing is very neat. ”

**Aziraphale was somewhat of an expert on sweets, so he could tell homemade from bakery-made pastries.

Even as Aziraphale was complimenting it, Crowley was savagely slicing the cake, as though to destroy the evidence of his work.  He dropped a piece on a plate and pushed it towards the angel.

Aziraphale was trying to suppress a smile when he saw the marbled combination of light and darkly-colored cake.  “Is this…”

“Angel cake and devil’s food,” said Crowley sheepishly.  It has seemed like such a clever idea at the time, but now it just seemed silly.

“Fitting,” said Aziraphale simply.

Crowley was watching his face closely for any betrayal of his thoughts as they ate, but he showed nothing besides the usual amused acceptance he paid Crowley’s Valentine’s Day efforts.

As soon as Aziraphale put his fork down, he motioned to the gift.  “I suppose this is for me as well?”

Crowley nodded.  “Be careful.  It’s fragile,” he said as Aziraphale began to unwrap it.

Aziraphale carefully slid the paper off, revealing the charred cover of an old volume.  “Oh, _my_ ,” he said.  “Crowley, is this—?  It _is,_ isn’t it?”

“The original _Nice and Accurate Prophecies,_ ” he said.  “I thought you might like it for your collection after what happened…”

“This is…”  Aziraphale looked down at the book, running his hands over the spine gently.  “A great gift.  I love it. Thank you.”

Aziraphale had never received such a heartfelt gift*** from the demon.  As he sat there holding it, Crowley’s eyes roving over him, he felt disquiet growing inside him.

* * *

***As far as he knew. Crowley had actually given him gifts just as thoughtful in the past, but usually the significance of them was lost on Aziraphale, who did not pay as close attention to the demon’s behavior as he liked to think.

* * *

“To commemorate what we’ve been through,” said Crowley.  “…and how close we’ve become.”

Aziraphale put the book on the table, looked Crowley in the eyes.  “Crowley, why have you done this?”

“To commemorate—”

“No, Crowley, _this_.”  He gestured to all the Valentine’s Day efforts around him.  “It’s much more elaborate than what you usually do. You’ve always just come bother me in my shop with a cheap gift you bought.  This…Crowley, don’t try and pretend you’re only participating in the holiday for show this year.  Why have you done this?”

Crowley’s face had gone white.  He caught his breath, swallowed.  “I guess this is as good a time as any.”  He pushed the wine glasses to the side and put his hands on Aziraphale’s, rubbing them with his thumb.  “I wanted to tell you something.”

“What’s that?”

When Crowley refused to meet his eyes and still seemed hesitant, Aziraphale prodded, “Go ahead.”

Crowley swallowed again. “Aziraphale, I—  We’ve been seeing each other for millennia now, and while we weren’t always on such good terms I…  That is to say, the way I feel has…. has been changing regarding…  Oh, Aziraphale.  I-I love you!”

Aziraphale was not sure he had heard correctly.  “You what?”

“Love you.  I love you, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale smiled faintly. “Don’t be silly, you don’t love me. You don’t know what love is.”

“No, listen, Aziraphale,” said Crowley, desperation mounting in his voice.  “When we were in Tadfield, and you said you could feel the aura of love, and—”

“Crowley,” he interrupted, retrieving his hands from Crowley’s grasp.  “My dear, I don’t know what you’re feeling, but it isn’t love. Love is a godly emotion.  You’ve been cut off from all that for ages.”

“Aziraphale, that’s not right,” said Crowley, almost choking.  “That’s not how it works.  I _do_ love you.  I-“

“That’s quite enough,” said Aziraphale, standing.  “If this is some lame effort to tempt me, it won’t work, you serpent.  Why would you try and convince me of something so absurd? It’s just not possible.  You can’t know anything about love.  You’re a _demon._ ”

Demons do not cry. Crowley’s body was physically incapable of crying.  Hell saw no use for it and did not give it out as a feature to demons leaving Hell. His body wasn’t equipped for it, but what he was feeling was heartbreak, something so visceral and human it demanded to be expressed in a human way.  A jagged wound was beginning to open up in his heart, and it had to be shown.

Capillaries in Crowley’s eyesockets burst under the mandate for tears.  Thick ruby droplets began to stream down his face.

“Crowley?” said Aziraphale, concern suddenly filling his voice.  “Are you all right? You’re bleeding!”

He stood with such force that his chair clattered backwards.  “The one who doesn’t know anything about love is _you!_ ”

Aziraphale was too stunned by the outburst to argue.  Crowley stared at him through the red haze before whirling around and stomping out of the flat.

Aziraphale looked down at the table.  Both the wineglasses had somehow cracked.

* * *

They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.  It’s easy to ignore the light until you’re left in darkness.  It’s difficult to take note of warmth until you’re plunged into cold. Aziraphale had never noticed the love in Crowley’s aura until he felt its absence.  


Aziraphale’s broad wings beat heavily against the sunset-streaked sky as he finally found the demon, hours later.  He spotted him on a low hill, sitting under an apple tree planted at the crest.  He flapped to slowly descend, and as Crowley’s aura grew stronger and stronger with the dwindling distance, he noticed the distinct change in its composition.

“Oh, dear.”

“Go away,” said Crowley’s muffled voice from where his face was buried in his knees.

“Crowley,” said Aziraphale as he drew his wings in.  “Please talk to me.”

Crowley unfolded his legs from his chest, revealing smears of blood from his face had dribbled down his neck and soaked his shirt.  “Go _away.”_

“I don’t understand. You _can’t_ feel love.  It’s not in your nature.  How…?”

“I thought you’d _understand_ , you great clod.  I thought you were _different_.  I thought you had learned.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Love isn’t something you get from _God_ , angel, it’s something that comes from inside you!  The son of Satan himself was capable of love!”

“But that’s different! Adam was almost like a human, he had a choice—”

“So do we!  After we learned to disobey when we tried to stop Armageddon I didn’t think me being capable of love would seem like that much of a stretch.”

Truth be told, Aziraphale had never really thought of any of his actions as disobedience—just creative interpretation of his orders.  “But it comes down to your basic nature, doesn’t it?  How could you learn something like that?”

“ _You still don’t get it!_ ”  Crowley stood so that Aziraphale could look into his bloody copper eyes.  “We don’t have to be what they tell us to be.  But I guess the status quo is just too comfortable, isn’t it?  It’s less effort, to just convince yourself I’m lying, because if I can feel love then maybe everything else you had thought was wrong!  Maybe I’m capable of good and you’re capable of evil!  Maybe you can’t just walk around enveloped in a cloud of holier-than-thou being convinced everything you do is right without having to think about it! You’re not any different from any of the angels who would kill me as soon as look at me!  You see me exactly the same way they do!”

“That’s not true!” said Aziraphale, grabbing his arm.  “Crowley, you know that’s not true.  How could you even say that?” 

“I thought we were the same, Aziraphale.  How could you not see that?  How could you defer to heaven’s talking points on something like this?”

“I…”

Crowley tried to wipe his face, but only succeeded in smearing blood everywhere.

Aziraphale squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry.”

Crowley’s face sagged into a blank expression, then ignited with rage.  “Don’t.  You’re not sorry at all.  You need to believe I can’t feel the same things as you so you can feel like you’re better than me, like you’re a perfect angel.  Get off me.”

Crowley pushed him away, kicking off into the air and disappearing into the gathering dusk.

Aziraphale stood there in the aftermath of the discharge of millennia of tension, stunned and ashamed of himself, because it was dawning on him that everything Crowley had said was exactly true.  And now he had hurt Crowley enough to cause _this._

Aziraphale had felt a brief resurgence of the love in Crowley’s aura when he had apologized. It might not be too late to fix things.

* * *

The bell on the door gave a small jingle as Crowley closed it behind him.  He stood in the entrance stonily.  “Well, here I am.”

It had taken weeks of coaxing, but Aziraphale had finally managed to convince him to come back to the bookshop.  “Thank you.”

“What is it?”

“Come here, please.”

Crowley drew closer to the counter.  There was an enormous Bible on the countertop, with ornate embossing and embroidery.  It was old and fancy and exactly the kind of thing Aziraphale would probably pay immoral sums of money to secure, and then snap at anyone who tried to touch it. Crowley eyed it warily; it made him more uncomfortable than a usual Bible.  “Why did you bring this out?”

Aziraphale flipped the Bible open; there small woodcut illustrations, and Crowley could see it was open to the verse in genesis about _him._

“Thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.”

Crowley was looking angrily at the floor, his arms crossed, his face red.  “What’s your point, angel?” he said, trying to hide the misery in his voice.

“You know what I think of that?”  With one swift motion, Aziraphale ripped the page out of the book; he held it up before Crowley’s amazed eyes and let it dissolve under flames from his hand.  

“Angel, what—”

Aziraphale ripped out the page with Genesis chapter 4, which met a similar fiery end.

“Crowley, I want you to _understand_.  I _am_ capable of—of doing things angels aren’t supposed to do.  I’ve _never_ destroyed any of God’s word in my entire life! I can’t think of anything more blasphemous to do!”

Crowley stared at him in silent amazement.

“I understand now,” pressed Aziraphale.  “You can do things demons—perhaps—can’t.  And I can do things angel, er…shouldn’t.”

He tore out the next page. “Angel, stop,” said Crowley, putting his hand on the counter.  “You’re going to be really upset about the state of that book when you come to your senses…”

There it was, that love Aziraphale had felt but never noticed, coming back up faintly.  He set fire to the paper in his hand.

“I’ll burn through this entire Bible, and then I’ll start on the other holy scripts in my collection. I’ll destroy them all if that’s what it takes to convince you I’m serious.  You’re more important to me than these books.  I’m sorry for how I hurt you.  I know you love me now, in the same way that… I love you.  Can you forgive me?”

Crowley caught Aziraphale’s hand as he went back to the book.  He let out a sigh, and Aziraphale felt his aura swell with the love the angel had driven out before.  “Of course I forgive you, you bloody idiot.”

Aziraphale closed his palms around Crowley’s hand and moved out from the counter.  He brushed hair from Crowley’s temples and removed his sunglasses, folding them and setting them on the counter.  The demon’s golden eyes were wide and nervous and so beautiful.

“Thank you,” said Aziraphale, squeezing his hand.  “You put so much effort into a nice Valentine’s Day for us, and I just ruined it.”

Crowley moved in, burying his face in Aziraphale’s collarbone.  “Don’t worry about that.”

Aziraphale was taken aback by the sudden gesture, but he quickly recovered and slid his hands up onto Crowley’s back.  “I had no idea I was capable of hurting you so much, my dear.  I was so afraid I had lost you after what I said.”

The demon nuzzled him. “Don’t worry.”

Forgiveness was not a very demonic behavior.  It was just another way Aziraphale had underestimated him.  “ _G—_ er—I love you so much.”

“I love you.”

Their lips met, then, and Aziraphale could feel him trembling under his hands.  Crowley’s hands came out and wrapped tightly around him, squeezing him.  He could feel the demon’s hot breath on his face, moaning faintly.  Aziraphale’s hands fell to his hips, and Crowley let out a small squeak and pressed himself into the angel more tightly.  He could feel him shaking terribly. 

When Aziraphale opened his eyes, he saw streams of red dripping down Crowley’s cheeks.  “Oh!  Crowley!” He palmed Crowley’s face, wiping the blood with his thumbs.  “Are you all right?”

Crowley’s eyes blinked open slowly, peering at Aziraphale muzzily from behind a haze of blood, as though he hadn’t realized what was happening.  “I—Oh.”  He sniffled.

Aziraphale miracled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at Crowley’s face.  “Come on, now.”

“S’tears of joy,” muttered Crowley.

Aziraphale planted a light kiss on his forehead.  “Happy Valentine’s Day, my dear.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr user Kogla made both the headcanon that demons cry blood and the drawing that inspired this fic (at http://kogla.tumblr.com/post/130058736846/dont-be-silly-you-dont-love-me-you-dont-know). Written with kind permission :)


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